Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #325

Today we have professional writer Holly Jahangiri choosing the words for our writing prompt challenge. She loves dishing out pain. 🙂

This is a writing prompt. Bet you can’t do it! Take the 10 random words below and crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story! And remember: after (if) you finish entering your submission into the comment field, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words. (If you’ve missed previous writing prompts, we BET YOU CAN’T do those, either.) NOTE: Our bolding plugin is gone, so you’ll have to put <b> and </b> around each of your words if you want them to stand out, but NOT REQUIRED THOUGH.

Mercy

Incendiary

Gravity

Soulless

Epiphany

Schadenfreude

Slate

Cavitation

Tyro

Fascist

NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks. (And don’t forget to tweet this and share it with your friends.)

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Through the tender mercy of Poseidon, the submariners had only seconds from the time Sonarman First Class Lee Cha Don detected the enemy’s launch cavitation signature to the impact of the torpedo. The Korean-American cried out in desperation, “Baek Sang Eo!”

***

Intel Specialist Fermi Sanchez watched in horror as the sodium payload turned the sub’s torpedo into an underwater incendiary widow-maker. Sanchez was the new kid in the room but even the tyro knew one thing: the crew had no chance. Gravity would take care of those who managed to escape the flash fire.

Wrestling his eyes from the monitor, he next had to struggle with the sinister sense of Schadenfreude, as these were human beings, dammit, not just pushpins on the world map. Sure, he would love to see the Koreas wiped off the map, but not if their soulless treachery pulled the United States into yet another “police action.” He sighed and sent in his report.

***

President Sasha Obama was livid. The fragile unity of the Koreas was being ripped apart by an incompetent Fascist regime, hell-bent on manipulating world markets with an incredibly strong won pushing all other currencies to the brink of irrelevancy. And now, this. She stared at the slate gray report cover. How dare they sink one of our subs! The White Shark torpedo attack had crippled their last Ohio-class sub, sending it to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

The President was still steaming when her daughter, LaVaughn wandered in. “Hi, mom! Whatchu doing?”

The President tried to fix her face with a smile, but it didn’t work. She decided to let Vonnie in on the news. She was going to have to address the nation shortly; any calming power she could get from her baby girl, she was grateful to receive.

LaVaughn did more than that. She had to be careful, though. If her mother ever realized that her daughter was off-the-chart brilliant, LaVaughn wouldn’t be able to fix this stupid planet, anymore. She had to tread carefully. As soon as her mother had started telling her that the Koreans had attacked an American sub, LaVaughn had had an epiphany. She zoned out on her mother’s voice and focused on the permutations and variables – intel was only but so useful, colored as it was by the lesser intellects of the members of the Signals Corps.

“Mommy, remember when we were playing Liar’s Dice with Aunt Chelsea and them?”

The President had to laugh. That was Vonnie, for you. Queen of the non-sequitur. She nodded, “Yeah, you kicked our butts.”

LaVaughn smiled. “What you didn’t know was that in the first round, I said ‘Seven fours,’ and forced everyone higher. Gerri had five fours, herself, so she confidently blurted out, ‘Nine fours.’ When you called her bluff, we counted only eight fours. Gerri looked like someone had slapped her. Nobody noticed that I didn’t have any fours…”

The President chuckled. “You are so devious. Okay, listen, I have to prepare for my statement, okay? You run along and I’ll catch up with you at dinner.” She hugged her daughter and sent her out.

She picked up the red phone.

“General Thompkins? The Koreans are not behind this. Y’all go find out who’s got the capability of retrofitting sodium payloads into torpedoes, because the Koreans for sure don’t have it!” She slammed the phone down and mentally winked at her daughter. You ain’t slick, girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Please have mercy on me, a tyro in the game of life. Starting off with an empty slate, I had known nothing about the quandary this problem produces. It feels as if gravity has been ripped from underneath my feet because it approaches without a word. Would it be cliched if I said the epiphany came while being struck by an object? I only hear that happiness arrives along with this package, but where has that promise gone?

Bad. Why do I feel so bad? At first, this incendiary idea had taken root and caught fire. The mind begins adopting these fascist thoughts, revolving around that one person. Soon, everyone I know had noticed the transformation. They say something looks off with my eyes and remark that they appear soulless. Perhaps the schadenfreude appearing in front of them causes the apathy. You walk past me without acknowledging my existence as a human, laughing at my misery. To say it inflicts cavitations inside me would be an exaggeration, yet part of it rings true. It stings when you refuse to talk to me even when I stand in front of you. It hurts when you look back and stare right past me. It frustrates me that I can’t forget someone as terrible as you.

Please have mercy on me as I am certain that is the only thing you can offer me.

I’m so tired I’m basically a tyro-maniac.
My body and mind beg for mercy — pain an incendiary gravity of soulless remorse.
But it brings the epiphany, the schadenfreude.
I’ll wipe the slate clean. Form a Cavitation Of Me within.
From now on, I’m a fascist for self-preservation.